A man looks at an electronic board displaying stock information on the Australian Stock Exchange, operated by ASX Ltd. on March 16, 2020 in Sydney, Australia.
Brendon Thorne | Getty Images
Shares in the Asia-Pacific rose on Friday as investors await Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech in Jackson Hole later in the United States.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.79% to close at 7,104.1.
Chinese tech stocks listed in both Hong Kong and the US were higher. It came as the Wall Street Journal reported that Washington and Beijing are close to reaching an agreement that would allow US accounting regulators to inspect audit records in Hong Kong.
Fears of takedown have plagued US-listed Chinese companies in recent months due to the audit dispute. In Hong Kong, Alibaba shares rose 2.13% and Baidu rose 2.54%. That compared with a 1.01% rise to 20,170.04 in the broader Hang Seng index.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.57% to 28,641.38 while the Topix rose 0.15% to 1,979.59.
The Kospi in South Korea advanced 0.15% to 2,481.03 and the Kosdaq fell 0.61% to 802.45.
Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite fell 0.31% to 3,236.22, and the Shenzhen component lost 0.366% to 12,059.71.
The broader index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.54% higher.
“hawkish comments from an overnight cast of Fed speakers had little consequence as markets await Powell’s presentation in Jackson Hole tonight,” wrote Taylor Nugent, economist at National Australia Bank, in a note on Friday He noted that Fed speakers have said that the central bank’s job of fighting inflation is not over and that rates need to move into restrictive territory.
Overnight in the US, the main indexes rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 322.55 points, or 0.98%, to 33,291.78. The S&P 500 gained 1.41% to 4,199.12, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.67% to 12,639.27.
A host of Hong Kong-listed companies will report earnings, including Meituan.